Re: packages being essential but having stuff in /usr/?!
"Giacomo A. Catenazzi" <cate@debian.org> writes:
> 'dirname', '[' and 'test' could cause some problem. Usually they are
> build-in on shell, but it is not mandatory, and policy BTW mandate some
> extended (from POSIX) syntax on built-in 'test', but I think policy
> missed the case of 'test' not being built-in and not being available
> (because it is in /usr/bin).
> [this is IMHO a BUG in policy]
Possibly, but I don't think Policy is really the place to try to rule out
any unreasonable thing that someone might consider doing. I have a hard
time imagining anyone trying to use a shell as /bin/sh which doesn't have
test as a built-in, and even if they did, dealing with NFS-mounted /usr
and the location of test would be the least of their problems.
That said, yes, Policy does have a trap door clause to deal with test not
being implemented as a built-in because people objected to the assumption
that it was a built-in at the time. I think it's a marginal case, though,
and I'm not inclined to worry too much about it.
>> Especially "-n",... which is widely used,... but not portable.
Policy requires echo -n be portable to any Debian system.
--
Russ Allbery (rra@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
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